Alter­na­tive sex­u­al­ity – A sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion that dif­fers from a pref­er­ence for vagi­nal inter­course (with minor vari­a­tions) within a monog­a­mous het­ero­sex­ual relationship.

Alter­na­tive lifestyle – Hav­ing a sex­u­al­ity that dif­fers sig­nif­i­cantly from the “norm” (see: Alter­na­tive sex­u­al­ity) may make an alter­na­tive lifestyle nec­es­sary or desir­able. A sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion less com­mon than the norm may stig­ma­tize the indi­vid­ual push­ing the per­son to seek a more accept­ing sub­cul­ture. An exam­ple is homo­sex­u­al­ity and the for­ma­tion of the gay community.

B

Black light­ning – A com­mon nick­name for a black fiber glass or resin rod that is used as a cane. Denser than rat­tan, it can inflict deeper dam­age and the feel is described as “cut­ting.” [see Cane]

Black snake – A type of single-lash whip that is flex­i­ble all the way to the knob.

Blood Sport – SM practices that result in draw­ing blood. Can include whip­ping or can­ing that breaks the skin, brand­ing, cut­ting, and piercing.

Body fluid monogamy, body fluid bond­ing – A prac­tice of shar­ing body flu­ids only between two part­ners in order to observe safer-sex rec­om­men­da­tions. Com­monly, the part­ners have been tested neg­a­tive for HIV, sometimes also for hepati­tis B and C. The part­ners may or may not play with oth­ers out­side their rela­tion­ship, but only by observ­ing strict safer-sex rules. [see Safer Sex]

Bondage – Any practice involv­ing restraints placed on the body to restrict free­dom of movement.

Bondage belt – A belt, usually leather with metal rings attached, to assist in per­form­ing bondage.

Bondage frame – Any stationary device used to assist in per­form­ing bondage.

Bondage har­ness – A con­fig­u­ra­tion of straps, usu­ally leather or nylon designed to: 1) orna­ment the body, and 2) aid in bondage and sus­pen­sion bondage.

Bot­tom – An SM prac­ti­tioner who sub­mits to bondage, train­ing, role play, cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, etc., but who is not nec­es­sar­ily emo­tion­ally com­mit­ted to his/her dom­i­nant part­ner (top).

Bot­tom­ing from the top – Orig­i­nally a deroga­tory term for a top who allows his bot­tom to run the scene, “bot­tom­ing from the top” has become a valid style of play. Most tops expe­ri­ence some scenes where they pre­fer to take at least some direc­tion from their bot­toms. Some even pre­fer this style of play and may call them­selves sub­mis­sive sadists. [see also, Top­ping from the bottom]

Bottom-space or sub-space – A type of erot­i­cally altered con­scious­ness (EAC) iden­ti­fied with feel­ings of falling into a state of sub­mis­sion. Gen­er­ally, bot­tom– or sub-space may be char­ac­ter­ized by, dimin­ished ego aware­ness, less active cog­ni­tive behav­ior, sur­ren­der­ing of will, and/or inabil­ity to ver­bal­ize. Frequently these func­tions are assumed by the dom­i­nant part­ner who becomes the submissive’s cen­ter of focus.

Brat – A bot­tom who enjoys strug­gling against con­trol or chal­leng­ing the top. Brat­ti­ness has a wide spec­trum from the play­ful “uppity bot­tom” to the smart-ass masochist. Some brats are “test­ing” their dom­i­nant, oth­ers have a desire to be “con­quered and tamed,” while some sim­ply do not wish to be con­trolled. [see Smart-ass masochist]

Brain fade – A state of con­fu­sion and/or inabil­ity to rea­son expe­ri­enced by the sub­mis­sive. This effect usu­ally results from psy­cho­log­i­cal dom­i­na­tion, the mind-fuck, or a deep­en­ing sub­mis­sive state. [see Bottom-space, Sub-space]

Breast bondage – Tying the female breasts with cord, string, rope, rub­ber bands, scarves, etc. as a part of SM or erotic play. May include nip­ple bondage or clamping.

Breath con­trol – Con­trol of breath­ing by the dom­i­nant through use of a gas mask or sim­i­lar appa­ra­tus, by chok­ing, or by cov­er­ing the mouth and nose.

Body mod­i­fi­ca­tion – The gen­eral term for prac­tices that reshape or orna­ment the body for rit­ual, erotic, dec­o­ra­tive, or fetish pur­poses. The prac­tices com­monly include tat­too­ing, pierc­ing, brand­ing, cut­ting, and corsetry.

Brand­ing – Burn­ing the skin, usu­ally with heated metal, to pro­duce scar­i­fi­ca­tion. Brand­ing can be a part of a scene, rit­ual, or body mod­i­fi­ca­tion. The design often con­sists of sev­eral uncon­nected lines and curves, each requir­ing a sep­a­rate strike with heated metal, bent to form its part of the design. The rea­son for the uncon­nected lines is to assure that ele­ments of the design do not scar into a shape­less mass; human skin heals dif­fer­ently than the hides of livestock.

Bug­gy­whip – A sin­gle thong whip with a rigid core and a flex­i­ble cracker at the end.

Cat or cat o’ nine tails – The term orig­i­nally referred to a whip used by British navy. Now, cat usu­ally to refers to all multi-thonged whips.

Cathar­sis – Pur­ga­tion of emo­tions and or stress through an SM scene may or may not be intentional.

Checking-in – Ask­ing the sub­mis­sive how they are doing, feel­ing, etc. dur­ing a scene. Spe­cific ques­tions get more use­ful answers. An affir­ma­tive response to “Are you ok?” may merely indi­cate that death is not impend­ing, but there still may be prob­lems, par­tic­u­larly with a macho sub. “Would you enjoy heav­ier (or lighter) sen­sa­tions?” is a bet­ter ques­tion. In SM play “is this good for you?” is asked dur­ing a scene rather than the typ­i­cal “was it good for you? “Afterwards. Checking-in should not replace a dominant’s own obser­va­tion and focus; it is another part of the safety net.

Cinch­ing – 1) Wear­ing of a cincher, a gar­ment sim­i­lar to, but less encom­pass­ing than a corset. 2) A bondage tech­nique, for exam­ple, to tighten coils of rope hold­ing the wrists together by wrap­ping the coils between the wrists by one or more “cinch loops” of rope.

Clamp, clamp­ing – Nip­ple clamps, clothes­pins, and binder clips are used to pinch or squeeze a small bit of flesh. The tar­get areas for clamp­ing are nip­ples, cocks, vul­vas, and other erot­i­cally sen­si­tive areas such as the sides of the torso and inner thighs. Weights can be added to increase the rigor.

Clip – [see Clamp, Clamping]

Clean – A code word used to describe a con­di­tion of being dis­ease free. [see Code word]

Cock and ball tor­ture or CBT – Tor­tures are inflicted on these body parts using clothes­pins, clamps, cock cages, weight, and var­i­ous kinds of bindings.

Col­lar, col­lared – 1) A sym­bol of sur­ren­der worn by a sub­mis­sive. A col­lar is given in a rela­tion­ship as a pro­found sym­bol of a com­mit­ment and bond. A “col­lared” sub­mis­sive is con­sid­ered to be owned (which see) or part­nered with a dom­i­nant player. 2) A piece of bondage equip­ment worn around the throat.

Con­di­tional com­pli­ance – The SM one-nighter, a lim­ited exchange of power nego­ti­ated by a dom and sub for a sin­gle scene or brief period of play, such as overnight, one day, or one week­end. [see Power exchange levels]

Con­di­tion­ing – The term used in psy­chol­ogy for the delib­er­ate process of cre­at­ing a psy­cho­log­i­cal link between a desired response and an unre­lated stim­u­lus. Much of what peo­ple in the SM com­mu­nity refer to as train­ing or slave train­ing uses clas­sic con­di­tion­ing techniques.

Con­dom – A latex sheath used on a penis or toy as a bar­rier to pre­vent the trans­mis­sion of dis­ease or preg­nancy. Nat­ural lamb­skin con­doms are also avail­able, but don’t func­tion effec­tively to pre­vent the spread of viral ill­ness. [see Safer Sex]

Con­sen­sual – Behav­ior or activ­i­ties agreed to by all par­ties involved. True con­sent is informed con­sent and requires a rea­son­ably accu­rate knowl­edge of pos­si­ble risks.

Con­trap­o­lar stim­u­la­tion “Hurts so good!” — A type of phys­i­cal stim­u­la­tion that incor­po­rates feel­ing of both plea­sure and pain.

Cor­po­ral – Activ­i­ties that involve the strik­ing of one indi­vid­ual by another are called cor­po­ral from the term cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment. Typ­i­cally cor­po­ral activ­i­ties include spank­ing, flog­ging, pad­dling, and caning.

Count­ing – The rit­u­al­ized count­ing of strokes received. The sub may be required to thank the dom­i­nant with each count. Exam­ple: “One, thank you Sir. Two, thank you Sir, etc.” A typ­i­cally dia­bolic prac­tice is to start the count over again each time a mis­take is made. Some masochists never seem to get the count cor­rect, even with their shoes off.

Covenant of dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion – A deeply com­mit­ted sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship between a dom­i­nant and a sub­mis­sive. [see Lev­els of power exchange]

Cross­dress­ing – Dress­ing in clothes of the oppo­site gender.

Cru­ci­fix­ion – Bondage incor­po­rat­ing a sta­tion­ary cross. The submissive’s arms and legs are tied, not nailed. Care must be taken to ensure that the torso is prop­erly sup­ported, oth­er­wise, stran­gu­la­tion may occur.

Cuff, cuff­ing – 1) Plac­ing hand­cuffs, man­a­cles, or sim­i­lar restraints on the wrists and/or ankles. 2) Also refers to the restraints in the noun form. For exam­ple: “That is a nice cuff you’re wear­ing,” or “This cuff­ing is very comfy.”

Cut­ting – I) slic­ing the skin as a part of body mod­i­fi­ca­tion, rit­ual, or scene. Most fre­quently, designs are trans­ferred to the skin as they would be for the cre­ation of a tat­too. Then either scalpels, razor blades, art knives, or other cut­ting tool incise the skin at a depth of 1/16″ to 3/16. Cut­tings can include color by means of tat­too inks or cigar (not cig­a­rette) ash rubbed into the fresh wounds. Care should always be taken to insure ster­ile con­di­tions. 2) The break­ing of skin by use of a cor­po­ral instru­ment. Sin­gle lash whips, canes, crops and oth­ers can cut if used improp­erly. 3) The deep stingy feel of some toys.

D

Den­tal dam – A latex bar­rier used for cun­nilin­gus or anill­n­gus to pre­vent dis­ease trans­mis­sion. Plas­tic food wrap is an inex­pen­sive, but sat­is­fac­tory, substitute.

Deriv­a­tive plea­sure, immediate/delayed – Cor­po­ral strokes that are painful at impact, but plea­sur­able fol­low­ing ini­tial exe­cu­tion. An imme­di­ately derived plea­sure stroke feels good right after the impact. Delayed deriv­a­tive plea­sure is an accu­mu­la­tion of painful strokes that explodes into sex­ual heat some time later.

Dis­ci­pline – The “D” in B&D that can mean; 1) pun­ish­ment 2) struc­tured train­ing of a submissive.

Do-me queen/king – A bot­tom that takes pas­sive delight from the phys­i­cal activ­i­ties of scen­ing with­out a desire to give sub­mis­sion or plea­sure in return.

Dom­i­nance, dom­i­nance & sub­mis­sion, D/s, D&s – The consensual empowerment of one partner by the other for erotic enhancement Dominance and sub­mis­sion are the psychological and emotional under­pin­nings of SM. [see Power exchange]

Dom­i­nant, Dom, Domme, Dom­ina, Dom­i­na­trix – The per­son who is given con­trol in a con­sen­sual exchange of power. Domme, Dom­ina, and Dom­i­na­trix refers to women. Dom­i­nant, or Dom can refer to either gender.

E

Edge play – Erotic role play near or at the edge of a submissive’s or dominant’s lim­its. The term also refers to activ­i­ties that carry a higher than usual ele­ment of risk.

Electro-torture – The use of elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion to cre­ate a desired phys­i­cal sensation.

Emo­tional but­tons, emo­tional trig­gers – Asso­ci­a­tions with words, behav­iors, or activ­i­ties that pro­voke a strong emo­tional reac­tion. Dom­i­nants will do well to become famil­iar with the unique trig­gers of his sub­mis­sive. It is impor­tant to know, as much as pos­si­ble. which but­tons evoke pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive responses.

Endor­phins, endor­phin high – Endor­phins are sub­stances cre­ated by the body to help endure pain or stress. Entirely nat­ural, but the­o­ret­i­cally sim­i­lar in feel to opi­ates. The body’s release of endor­phins may cre­ate a feel­ing of well-being, even intox­i­ca­tion, which is called an endor­phin high. Peo­ple dif­fer dra­mat­i­cally in their abil­ity to release endor­phins. The pos­si­bil­ity of addic­tion to endor­phins has been conjectured.

Enema – The instru­ment used for, or the act of inject­ing fluid into the anus to flush the lower intestines. Some peo­ple include ene­mas in SM scenes for humil­i­a­tion, for prepa­ra­tion for other activ­i­ties (such as fist­ing or anal sex), and/or sim­ply because they may enjoy the sensation.

Eng­lish – A code word for spank­ing or cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment some­times used in ads. We will have achieved social accep­tance when ads in main­stream papers can say, “Roman­tic sadist seeks masochist lover,” instead of non­sense like, “devo­tee of Eng­lish cul­ture seeks recep­tive partner.”

Erotic power – Erotic power is like poten­tial energy, becom­ing sig­nif­i­cant only when it is exchanged or used to empower a dom­i­nant by the trans­fer of con­trol. [see Power exchange]

Erotic pain – Stim­uli that are painful under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, but are plea­sur­able or arous­ing in a sex­ual context.

Erotic restraint – Restrict­ing move­ment for erotic play. Also, refers to the devices used for said purpose.

F

Fetish com­mu­nity – The name given to that group of peo­ple hav­ing an alter­nate sex­ual or gen­der ori­en­ta­tion, but exclud­ing the (vanilla) gay and les­bian communities.

Fire & ice – The use of hot and cold for sex­ual stim­u­la­tion, espe­cially hot wax dripped from a can­dle and ice applied to the skin.

Fist­ing – Inser­tion of the entire hand into the vagina (vagi­nal list­ing) or the anus (anal fisting).

Fla­gel­la­tion – The act of whip­ping a human being.

Flog­ger, flog­ging – An unbraided multi-thonged whip is a flog­ger. To whip using a flog­ger or other cor­po­ral instruments.

Fly­ing – A tran­scen­dent state of con­scious­ness some­times achieved dur­ing an SM scene. This rap­tur­ous state has been so often described in a sim­i­lar man­ner by inde­pen­dent sources that we have no doubt of the valid­ity of the expe­ri­ence. Feel­ings described by the sub­mis­sive seem sim­i­lar to that of out of body expe­ri­ences and often include a psy­chic link to the Dom. Most com­monly, this link is felt as either a tether to the dom­i­nant or as a feel­ing of being sur­rounded and pro­tected by the Dom’s pres­ence or con­scious­ness. Ela­tion and spaci­ness expe­ri­enced after fly­ing may be felt for hours, even days after the ses­sion has ended.

French – A com­mon code word for kiss­ing involv­ing the tongue, cun­nilin­gus, and fellatio.

Forced oral, forced sex – Sex­ual role play where the Dom pre­tends to force an activ­ity that the sub pre­tends they are under duress to per­form. It involves a shared sus­pen­sion of real­ity. (A Dom only “forces” the sub to per­form activ­i­ties he or she has requested.)

G

Gen­der com­mu­nity – Peo­ple with cross-gender fan­tasies or cross-gender iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Cross-dressers, trans­ves­tites, and trans­sex­u­als make up the gen­der community.

Gen­der ori­en­ta­tion – Gen­der ori­en­ta­tion is an issue apart from sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. It is self-identification and feel­ings of male­ness or female­ness, rather than issues of sex­ual attrac­tion. A per­son with an alter­nate gen­der ori­en­ta­tion may or may not have an alter­nate sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. For exam­ple; a trans­ves­tite or a trans­sex­ual may be either het­ero­sex­ual or gay.

Gen­der play – To dress up or take the role of the oppo­site sex dur­ing a scene. [see Sissification]

Ger­man – A code word for Sado­masochis­tic desires.

Golden shower – Uri­na­tion on or in another person.

Greek – The code word for anal sex­ual activities.

H

Hand­cuffs – These metal shack­les are used to bind wrists by law enforce­ment per­sonal, legally, and by sado­masochists, covertly. Hand­cuffs are con­sid­ered weapons and ille­gal to own in most states, but are easy to buy and com­monly used.

Head games – 1) Dom­i­na­tion where the focus is pri­mar­ily men­tal, such as humil­i­a­tion, rather than phys­i­cal, such as bondage or whip­ping. 2) Non-consensual psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion to make a per­son respond in a par­tic­u­lar way for one’s own purposes.

Heavy – 1) Intense SM play or whip­ping. 2) A term describ­ing an SM toy such as a flog­ger or cane that is capa­ble of deliv­er­ing intense sensations.

Hood – A cov­er­ing for the head. Hoods used in SM are made of var­i­ous mate­ri­als, espe­cially; leather, span­dex, and rub­ber. Some hoods are con­structed as orna­men­ta­tion, oth­ers are used as a part of bondage to con­trol or restrict sight, sound, speech (by incor­po­rat­ing a gag), and/or breathing.

Humil­i­a­tion – Play­ful embar­rass­ment or hum­bling a per­son by teas­ing them about their sex­ual desires can be part of erotic con­trol. Humil­i­a­tion in SM can para­dox­i­cally build a person’s self-esteem rather than tear­ing it down by rein­forc­ing their sex­u­al­ity. Real attacks on a person’s self-worth or sex­u­al­ity, or manip­u­la­tions designed to break their spirit are abuse not within the appro­pri­ate prac­tice of SM.

I

Infan­til­ism – Role play involv­ing infant-like behav­ior such as dia­per wear­ing, nurs­ing, etc.

In-role – Assum­ing the per­sona of a sex­ual arche­type or fan­tasy character.

Iso­la­tion – 1) A fear of inter­re­lat­ing with oth­ers. Peo­ple are often; a) afraid to “come out” about their attrac­tion to SM out of fear of soci­etal reper­cus­sions, or b) they may think that no one shares their attrac­tion to a par­tic­u­lar SM(or other sex­ual) prac­tice. In both cases, this can lead to feel­ings of inad­e­quacy, self-doubt, depres­sion, and/or lone­li­ness. 2] A tech­nique of sen­sory depri­va­tion, bondage, and trick­ery to make a sub­mis­sive feel as though he or she is being left alone.

J

K

Kather­ine wheel – A piece of dun­geon equip­ment that looks like a large, ver­ti­cally mounted wheel to which a sub­mis­sive is bound, allow­ing her to be turned or spun. Warn­ing: not for use with the sub that is inclined toward motion sickness.

Klismaphilia – the receiving of sexual arousal from introducing liquids into the rectum and colon via the anus. This paraphilia often involves the use of enemas. The term was coined in 1973 by Dr. Joanne Denko, an early investigator in this field, to describe the activities of some of her patients.

Knife play – Play that includes the use of a knife (does not nec­es­sar­ily imply cut­ting). Knives are more often used as props for psy­cho­log­i­cal effect, to scrap wax from a body after a fire and ice scene, to remove cloth­ing, and end­less other devi­ous purposes.

L

Latex – Latex and rub­ber are used to make cloth­ing, sheets and other fetish items.

Leather butt – 1) A term that describes a per­son who has been beaten so often that only intense whip­ping has any effect. 2) The con­di­tion of the but­tocks after heavy pad­dling. The skin com­presses and becomes stiff or “leath­ery” to the touch. The com­pres­sion effect is most pro­nounced with pad­dles, so leather butt can be avoided by using a mix­ture of implements.

Lifestyler – A per­son who lives a lifestyle that sup­ports rather than con­flicts with his SM fan­tasy arche­type. Some lifestylers object to the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of their SM iden­ti­ties as fan­tasy role play, feel­ing that it is inte­gral to their per­son­al­i­ties rather than a sex­ual game. It is easy, and often attrac­tive, to con­fuse real­ity and fan­tasy. [see Alter­nate sex­u­al­ity; Alter­nate lifestyle; In-role]

Limit – The bound­aries of SM activ­i­ties set by both dom­i­nant and sub­mis­sive dur­ing nego­ti­a­tion defin­ing what each is will­ing and unwill­ing to do within a scene. Lim­its must be respected and never inten­tion­ally breached by either part­ner. Lim­its apply to roles, lev­els of dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion, and dura­tion of time, as well as phys­i­cal activ­i­ties such as whip­ping, pad­dling, etc.

Live-in slave – A lifestyle sub­mis­sive in a com­mit­ted rela­tion­ship that lives within the con­text of a slave/master (or mis­tress) fantasy.

M

Macho sub – A sub­mis­sive with a reluc­tance to show dis­tress, use a safe word, or who feels a need to sto­ically endure what is not plea­sur­able. The macho sub may be moti­vated by a desire to prove her met­tle, show devo­tion, or reflect her inter­nal fan­tasy. The macho sub must make sure the dom is aware of her incli­na­tions dur­ing nego­ti­a­tion. The dom of a macho sub­mis­sive should rely more on a checking-in tech­nique and less on spon­ta­neous feed­back. The macho sub’s sav­ing grace is a strong desire to obey. Order­ing her to com­mu­ni­cate clearly about stress, as it occurs can over­ride some of her reluc­tance to “be a wimp.”

Masochism, masochist – The erotic enjoy­ment of pain, humil­i­a­tion, and/or of being dom­i­nated. One who enjoys pain, etc. Some­times the terms are used to describe one who enjoys heav­ier pain.

Mas­ter – A male that takes the dom­i­nant role in SM role play. The title may be bestowed upon the male dom­i­nant in appre­ci­a­tion of his skill. It may be a term of endear­ment or a lov­ing trib­ute to a dom by a sub­mis­sive in a rela­tion­ship. Equally often, the term is self-aggrandizement by a male with dom­i­nant fan­tasies, not infre­quently with “true” or “real” tacked in front.

Men­tal bondage– Rope­less bondage by com­mand. A sub­mis­sive instructed by her dom­i­nant to remain in posi­tion will feel bound to obey.

N

Nego­ti­a­tion – The process of deter­min­ing the prac­tices and bound­aries of sex­ual and SM activ­i­ties between a top and a bot­tom. It may apply to the whole rela­tion­ship or just a spe­cific scene. Nego­ti­at­ing is an ongo­ing process that is repeated as the play­ers’ needs change.

Nip­ple clamps, nip­ple clips – [see Clamp, Clamping]

Nip­ple play/torture – Stim­u­la­tion of the nip­ples for cor­po­ral or erotic pur­poses. Often includes; suck­ing, pinch­ing, clamp­ing, fire and ice, or piercing.

Non­con­sen­sual – SM play that is not sanc­tioned by either player.

Nos­tril strap – A device, usu­ally of bent wire, with a string attached for hook­ing into the nos­trils for humil­i­a­tion and tor­ment. Com­monly used in Japan­ese SM.

Novice – A per­son with an inter­est in SM, but lack­ing in experience.

O

Ori­en­tal bondage, rope dress – Any of a num­ber of styles of rope bondage stem­ming from styles used in the Far East. Typ­i­cally, the bondages are highly dec­o­ra­tive, uni­form, and symmetrical.

Over the knee, OTK – A clas­sic spank­ing posi­tion. Also a code word for same.

Own­er­ship, absolute own­er­ship – 1) Within master/slave role play own­er­ship means hav­ing con­trol of the sub­mis­sive. 2) Loosely used in the SM com­mu­nity to mean an ongo­ing dominant/submissive rela­tion­ship. 3) Absolute own­er­ship is a lost-in-fantasy rela­tion­ship based on sado­ma­somythol­ogy and fic­tional lore.

P

Pad­dle, pad­dling – A rigid flat-surfaced imple­ment usu­ally of leather or wood used for spank­ing a fanny. Pad­dling is the act of using a pad­dle. A pad­dle is also the imple­ment that a wise-ass masochist often finds her­self up the creek without.

Pain slut – A masochist who derives plea­sure from phys­i­cal pain.

Pan­sex­ual– No gender spe­cific sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. A group that encom­passes all sex­ual and gen­der ori­en­ta­tions is said to be pansexual.

Pierc­ing – Pierc­ing the skin with a nee­dle in an SM scene, as rit­ual, or as body mod­i­fi­ca­tion. Most fre­quently, pierc­ings are accom­pa­nied by the instal­la­tion of jew­elry. An excep­tion to this is play pierc­ing. In play pierc­ing, the nee­dle is inserted into, or through, the skin as a part of a scene, but the wound(s) are often allowed to heal with­out jew­elry being introduced.

Pillory – Handed down from the reign of the Puri­tans, a pil­lory is usu­ally wooden-framed, free-standing stocks that impris­ons the head and wrists for immo­bi­liz­ing a per­son. For use with the humil­i­a­tion of your choice.

Piz­zle – The dried and stretched penis of a bull, or other large ani­mal, formed into a whip. These are actu­ally deadly toys.

Plas­tic wrap – Reg­u­lar, old plas­tic food wrap can be used for encas­ing the body for bondage. Unlike food, it will not keep your sub­mis­sive fresh. [see Mummification]

Play – Par­tic­i­pat­ing in an SM scene or SM scene activity.

Play­room, Pray space – Any area you des­ig­nate in which to per­form an SM scene. Hotel rooms, secluded woods, and deliv­ery vans qual­ify as well as a per­ma­nently fur­nished base­ment or dun­geon. Also referred to as dun­geon space.

Play pun­ish­ment – The use of pun­ish­ment as an excuse for an erotic encounter. She burnt the toast that morn­ing, for­got to say, “Sir,” or some other triv­ial mis­deed and, alas, must be cor­rected. Some­how, both end up get­ting what they crave. As a game, this beats the heck out of strip monop­oly. Pun­ish­ment is an erotic game that should never be used to address seri­ous problems.

Pony­girl, Pony­boy – A clas­sic SM fan­tasy immor­tal­ized in the draw­ings of John Willie and used in the Sleep­ing Beauty Tril­ogy by Ann Rice. Typ­i­cal pony garb includes a horse­hair tail attached to a buttplug, a bit gag and/or bri­dle head harness, and reins. Often very high heels, a corset, and feather plumes in the hair are added. The arms are typ­i­cally bound behind the back. Pony activ­i­ties range from being dis­played and directed by rein to being rid­den or pulling a cart.

Pony train­ing – The fan­ci­ful trans­for­ma­tion of a girl (Or boy) into “pony” to be rid­den, to pull a car­riage, or to per­form as a well-trained horse in obe­di­ence and deportment.

Posi­tion train­ing – The train­ing of a sub­mis­sive to assume a given posi­tion upon com­mand or under cer­tain circumstances.

Post-scene plunge – Feel­ings of let-down, depres­sion, fear, dis­gust, remorse, etc, after par­tic­i­pat­ing in SM play. Can be expe­ri­enced by either dom­i­nant or sub­mis­sive. Jay Wise­man, author of SM 101, uses the term “Top Drop” to describe these feel­ings on the part of the dominant.

Power exchange – The empow­er­ment of the dom­i­nant by the submissive’s sur­ren­der to his/her con­trol. Power exchange is con­sen­sual and should be well nego­ti­ated. The depth of the power yielded by the sub­mis­sive is equal to level of respon­si­bil­ity assumed by the dominant.

Power exchange lev­els – A sys­tem for link­ing emo­tional involve­ment and depth of feel­ing with degree of power exchange. The Five Lev­els are: one — Con­di­tional com­pli­ance, two — Restricted ongo­ing acqui­es­cence, three — Pro­vi­sional sub­mis­sion, four — the Covenant of dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion, and five – Absolute own­er­ship. The first four lev­els are based in reality.

Pro­vi­sional sub­mis­sion – An ongo­ing rela­tion­ship nego­ti­ated between a dom and a sub char­ac­ter­ized by power exchange and emo­tional involve­ment, but lack­ing seri­ous com­mit­ment. [see Power exchange levels]

Puni­tive pain – Pain that by inten­tion is designed to hurt for nonerotic pur­poses, usu­ally for pun­ish­ment. This is abu­sive and often moti­vated by a mis­un­der­stand­ing of appro­pri­ate con­trol mechanisms.

Push­ing lim­its – 1) A care­ful process of grad­ual expan­sion of lim­its. 2) Intense play that comes close to the unbear­able. [see Edge play]

PVC — poly-vinyl-chloride – 1) A type of plas­tic used for fetish cloth­ing. 2) The PVC pipes made for plumb­ing that can be con­structed into bondage devices.

Q

R

Restricted Ongo­ing Acqui­es­cence – An agree­ment, nego­ti­ated by a Dom and sub, to play casu­ally for an extended period of time with­out seri­ous emo­tional involve­ment. [see Power exchange levels]

Rim­ming – Com­mon term for anilin­gus (anal-oral sex).

Role play – 1) Elab­o­ra­tion of one’s sex­ual incli­na­tions by cre­at­ing a fan­tasy frame­work for them. 2) Peo­ple with com­pat­i­ble sex­ual fan­tasies tak­ing on com­pli­men­tary per­sona to inter­act with each other.

S

Sadism, Sadist – Deriv­ing sex­ual plea­sure from the giv­ing of pain, humil­i­a­tion, and/or dom­i­na­tion. The hon­or­able sadist only gives pain or humil­i­a­tion to those desir­ing it, respects lim­its, is car­ing and careful.

Sado­masochism, SM – Advanced sex­ual prac­tices incor­po­rat­ing the con­sen­sual use of pain, humil­i­a­tion, and power exchange for erotic enjoy­ment. SM includes dom­i­nance and sub­mis­sion, bondage and dis­ci­pline, love bondage, and erotic spank­ing. The term is fre­quently mis­used to indi­cate heav­ier or more extreme practices.

Sado­ma­somythol­ogy – The mis­con­cep­tions of soci­ety in regard to what sado­masochism actu­ally entails. Also, an ill-informed idea about a par­tic­u­lar prac­tice within SM.

Safe, sane, and con­sen­sual – Char­ac­ter­izes the accept­able play within the SM com­mu­nity; play­ers adhere to safety pre­cau­tions within their activ­i­ties, do not par­tic­i­pate in prac­tices that will injure their part­ners (men­tally or phys­i­cally), and obtain con­sent by nego­ti­at­ing scenes and scene related activ­i­ties before car­ry­ing them out.

Safe sex, Safer sex – Prac­tic­ing sex wherein no body flu­ids are exchanged; includes the use of con­doms on inser­tion toys as well as penises, den­tal dams, or plas­tic wrap for cun­nilin­gus, clean­li­ness with regard to cor­po­ral toys, absten­tion from pen­e­tra­tion, etc.

Safe word, Safe sig­nal – A word, a phrase, or an action (like drop­ping a bail by a gagged sub­mis­sive) used by the sub­mis­sive as a sig­nal to stop the scene or reduce the intensity.

St. Andrew’s cross – An upright cross in the shape of the let­ter “X” to which peo­ple are bound for flog­ging or torture.

Scat – Feces, also, play with feces.

Scene – 1) The SM or fetish com­mu­nity; or things asso­ci­ated with it. 2) An occur­rence or ses­sion of SM play.

Sen­sory depri­va­tion – Restrict­ing or dilut­ing a submissive’s abil­ity to use one or more of his/her senses of touch, hear­ing, sight, taste, or smell as a part of an SM scene.

Sen­sory relo­ca­tion – Trans­fer­ring the feel­ing of a stim­uli to a dif­fer­ent body loca­tion than it is received.

Sen­sual play – SM play that focuses on stim­u­lat­ing the senses with­out the use of pain.

Ser­vice – Acts, chores, or labor, sex­ual or oth­er­wise, per­formed by a sub for the ben­e­fit of a Dom.

Ses­sion – A scene. [see Scene]

Serpent’s Tongue – A type of slap­per made of a thick strap of leather, two or three inches wide, with a deep “V” cut into most of the length of the piece. Com­monly, the han­dle will have a dou­ble thick­ness with a ring stitched at the end. This is a very nasty toy.

Sex­ual imprint­ing, reim­print­ing – There is a school of thought stat­ing that sex­ual responses result from imprint­ing based on past asso­ci­a­tions, expe­ri­ences, back­ground, and envi­ron­ment, often dat­ing back to early child­hood. Alter­ing sex­ual behav­ior by chang­ing responses and cre­at­ing new asso­ci­a­tions is a tech­nique called reimprinting.

Silent alarm – A safety pre­cau­tion used by play­ers who are new to one another. For exam­ple: a sub­mis­sive, play­ing with a dom­i­nant for the first time, might arrange for a friend to be near a tele­phone at a pre-arranged time. If the sub­mis­sive does not call at that time, the friend will be alerted that some­thing has gone wrong and will take steps to see that the sub­mis­sive is safe.

SM vir­gin – A per­son with lit­tle or no expe­ri­ence in SM practices.

Smart Ass Masochist, SAM – A bot­tom, who rather than sub­mit­ting, chal­lenges or annoys to entice a Dom to pun­ish her. [see Brat]

Span­dex· — A very stretch­able syn­thetic cloth used for fetish cloth­ing and bondage gear.

Spank­ing – Strik­ing a sub­mis­sive, usu­ally with an open hand, on her fanny. Some use this term to include pad­dling, as well.

Spank­ing bench – A piece of sta­tion­ary equip­ment with attach­ment points to designed to secure a sub­mis­sive in prepa­ra­tion for a spank­ing. Prop­erly bound or posi­tioned on a spank­ing bench, the submissive’s arse is in an acces­si­ble, con­ve­nient angle for a spank­ing or whipping.

Spank­ing skirt – A skirt or dress with cut-outs over each fanny cheek, designed to allow bare-skinned spank­ing. The spank­ing skirt is a clas­sic piece of scene-wear that enhances humiliation/exhibitionism aside from its prac­ti­cal application.

Spreader bar – A strong bar, usu­ally wooden, bam­boo, or metal, with rings or holes on each end, used as a bondage tool to keep a submissive’s arms or legs apart.

Sting – A sharp bit­ing feel to the sur­face of the skin.

Stocks – A device (usu­ally wooden) with holes designed to imprison a submissive’s wrists and head, or wrists and ankles. [see Pillory]

Stop­light safe words – A com­monly used sys­tem of safe words wherein red means stop the scene imme­di­ately and release the sub, yel­low warns the dom­i­nant that the cur­rent prac­tice is push­ing the submissive’s endurance, and green lets the dom­i­nant know that what is hap­pen­ing is awfully nice and should be continued.

Straight – 1) Code word for het­ero­sex­ual. 2) Adjec­tive for some­one or some­thing that is not SM ori­ented. In this sense, a syn­onym for vanilla.

Strap – 1) As a noun, this is either a bondage restraint (usu­ally leather with a buckle) or an instru­ment of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment (also, usu­ally leather sans the buckle). 2) As a verb, it is the act of bind­ing or beat­ing a sub­mis­sive with a strap.

Sub­mis­sive, Sub – One who sur­ren­ders con­trol of her body and behav­ior (within pre-defined lim­i­ta­tions) to another for erotic play.

Sub-space– [see: Bottom-space]

Sub­mis­sive uni­form – A com­mon mode of dress worn by submissives empha­siz­ing their sex­u­al­ity, usu­ally very short skirts, reveal­ing tops, high heels, and stock­ings sup­ported by a garter belt or bustier.

Sus­pen­sion – A bondage tech­nique wherein the submissive’s weight, totally or par­tially, is borne by the restraints used in the bondage. Great care must be exer­cised in this prac­tice; usu­ally, bondage har­nesses and sus­pen­sion cuffs are used in suspension.

T

Tantric Yoga, Vajrayana Bud­dhism – Indian means for achiev­ing a tran­scen­dent spir­i­tual state that incor­po­rates sex­ual and med­i­ta­tive tech­niques. There are many paths to enlight­en­ment and erotic explo­ration is one.

Tawes. taws – Thick rigid leather with a length­wise slit (or slits) in it used in a paddle-like fashion.

Thud – A blow that is felt at a deeper level than sting, Thud is usu­ally eas­ier to tol­er­ate, but may actu­ally be more dam­ag­ing as it can cause deeper bruising.

Tit tor­ture – Erotic play involv­ing the breasts.

Tol­ley­boy – A lock­ing chastity belt made in Eng­land of rubber-lined stain­less steel.

Top – One who takes the active role in phys­i­cal scene, but not nec­es­sar­ily emotional/mental control.

Top’s dis­ease – A state of self-delusion wherein the top believes his own fan­tasy of dom­i­nant superiority.

Top­ping from the bot­tom – Main­tain­ing the fic­tion that the top is in charge, where the real con­trol and direc­tion of a scene rests with the bot­tom. [see also, Bot­tom­ing from the top]

Top-space – A state of erot­i­cally altered con­scious­ness (EAC) achieved dur­ing a scene by the dom­i­nant or top. It is char­ac­ter­ized by feel­ings of intense focus, clar­ity of thought, a sense of extreme power or high energy, and/or exhil­a­ra­tion. Feel­ings of dis­tance and objec­tiv­ity, as if one where com­mand­ing from a moun­tain­top, may para­dox­i­cally accom­pany feel­ings of con­nec­tion to the sub­mis­sive, as if there were a psy­chic link. A dis­pas­sion­ate per­spec­tive may com­bine with erotic ardor. Top space may be fol­lowed by either a con­tin­ued sense of well-being or by feel­ings of fatigue, depres­sion, or lethargy. [see Post-scene plunge]

Tor­ture – Actions that would be painful out­side of their erotic con­text used to enhance sex­ual plea­sure for a bottom.

Total con­ver­sion or the “ouch­less ouch” – Whips strokes or cor­po­ral stim­uli deliv­ered dur­ing an erotic scene that begins light and rises grad­u­ally. The level of sex­ual arousal is always kept at a high enough level so that the blows are never expe­ri­enced sub­jec­tively as pain.

Train­ing – Any of many dis­ci­plines wherein the Dom and sub act together to mod­ify the sub’s behav­ior, con­di­tion, and/or atti­tude. Includes, but is not restricted to; pony train­ing, anal train­ing, posi­tion train­ing, voice com­mand response, and so on.

TS, Trans­sex­ual – A per­son who born in a phys­i­cal gen­der that does not match his or her per­sonal psy­chol­ogy. These peo­ple are com­monly going through “gen­der reas­sign­ment” by means of coun­sel­ing, hor­mone treat­ments, and surgery to cor­rect their sit­u­a­tion. A TS is called a “pre-op” before sur­gi­cal mod­i­fi­ca­tion and a “post-op” afterwards.

TV, Trans­ves­tite – A man or woman dress­ing in the cloth­ing of the oppo­site gender.

True Master/True sub­mis­sive – A term of self-description usu­ally used by incom­pe­tent new­com­ers or lost-in-fantasy oth­ers to entice a peo­ple to play with them. The “True Sub­mis­sive” (or more typ­i­cally “Tue slave”) is one who buys into the non­sense that the “Tue Mas­ter” is sell­ing. “True sado­masochism” is also used to allude to a non-existent, “gen­uine” stan­dard of SM excellence.

V

Vam­pire glove – Vam­pire gloves are most often thin leather dri­ving gloves that have sharp, metal tines or tacks lin­ing the palms. The tines are typ­i­cally snap, or rhine­stone set­tings that are poked through the leather from the inside and glued in place, though some very mean gloves uti­lize thumb or car­pet tacks. Fur mitts can be embell­ished with tines in the same man­ner, yield­ing tex­tures from very nice to yowee!

Vanilla – Describes things, activ­i­ties and peo­ple who are not part of the SM scene, for exam­ple; “We had vanilla sex last night,” mean­ing, “We had sex with­out includ­ing any SM scene elements.”

Ver­bal humiliation/abuse – The use of sex­ual epi­thets and sim­i­lar ver­bal­iza­tions to excite or hum­ble one’s part­ner. Ver­bal humil­i­a­tion is good when it is used to sup­port the value of the sub­mis­sive. It becomes abuse when it is used to tear down the self-esteem of the sub. The line between the two is not always clear and may vary within one person’s psy­che depend­ing upon mood. Use with cau­tion and sensitivity.

Vir­gin rap­ture – Period of time (often years long) wherein new­com­ers are so over­whelmed by SM that they think the world revolves around it and can never imag­ine return­ing to any other form of sex­u­al­ity. When the infat­u­a­tion ends feel­ings of dis­ap­point­ment and loss are com­mon. It may be reas­sur­ing to know that this is a nor­mal process as SM is inte­grated into a person’s sexuality.

W

Weights _ Lead fish­ing weights or other weights hung from clamps that are attached to the body to increase tor­ment. [see Clamps, Clamping]

Whip – A whip is an object used to beat on a sub­mis­sive. Many peo­ple in the scene use the term whip to include canes, crops, pad­dles, slap­pers, etc., as well as sin­gle– and multiple-lash whips.

Whip­ping – 1) The act of beat­ing a sub­mis­sive or bot­tom. 2) Fin­ish­ing a rope-end to pre­vent fray­ing by wrap­ping it with thread or string.

White light­ning – A com­mon nick­name for a white fiber glass or resin rod often with a leather or rub­ber han­dle that is used as a cane. Being much more dense than rat­tan, it can inflict deeper dam­age and the feel is described as “cut­ting.” [see Cane]

Wor­ship – 1) To lav­ish atten­tions upon a part of the body, usu­ally feet, pussy or cock. 2) A role play­ing atti­tude toward a dom­i­nant, typ­i­cally of a male sub toward his goddess/mistress.

Wrap­ping – Allow­ing the tips of a whip or cane to strike parts of the body other than the intended tar­get. For exam­ple, aim­ing for the fanny and hit­ting it, but the tips of the whip wrap around the fanny and strike the hip. Bruis­ing on the hips is often a sign of a care­less or incom­pe­tent top who is fre­quently unaware of the dam­age that is occurring.